As The Globe Turns

In the basement of the Boston Globe is a room with tall bookshelves; some
cramped with manila folders ready to burst with old newspaper clippings others a filled with history books and encyclopedias.   This was the Internet before the Internet was invented.  “It was a completely different world,” Lylah M. Alphonse explained, “When someone was working on a story they would come down here if they needed to look something up – it was called combing through the archive.”
Now journalists can track down a wealth of information without leaving their desk and all the sources can be linked directly into the article for any reader to verify for their self.  “This has been a major, major, major change in how a lot of journalists have to adapt to today’s world”.
The Internet may have made finding information easier for journalists but it has also made it easier for newsreaders.   Over the years more and more people are flocking towards the Internet as their primary source for the news, threatening the future of print media.
And if the archives felt a bit archaic, the printing press down the hall looked like a relic left behind from the Industrial Revolution.  It was big, yellow, and making lots of noise.  It is an impressive machine and also one of the reasons The New York Times wants to cut back on the Boston Globe.
“This costs a lot to run,” Alphonse yelled over the hisses and buzzing coming from
the printing press.  “Paper isn’t getting any cheaper.  Ink isn’t getting any cheaper.  Man power, expertise, none of it is getting any cheaper but it is getting used less often.”
Nowadays more people are subscribing to on-line articles rather than print. One of the major differences being that on-line is free for a majority of newspapers – including the Boston Globe.
Originally, with the advent of the Internet, it was seen as a tool to supplement the print and put on-line for free assuming people would still buy the paper.  Now the news has been available for free for so long that nobody wants to pay for it anymore.
On top of people not feeling inclined to pay for the news, advertisements can only take up so much of the page.  One of the newspapers greatest sources of revenue was the classifieds which are also available now online in their free internet form via Craigslist.com, a free open market for buying and selling, even for romance.  Craig Newmark declined to comment further on the situation saying, “not sure I want to make it worse”.
The Boston Globe lost an estimated $50 million in 2008 and the net loss for this year is not looking any better. There are still a number of changes that the Globe can make to more effectively manage their money. Alphonse said, “They still drive a Mack truck around the city to deliver the papers rather than a smart car, a hybrid, even a mini-van would be more cost effective.”
There is still the hope that there is a way to monetize the print and on-line material into a profitable venture.  Teresa Hanafin, director of community publishing, reflected on the Boston Globe’s path towards on-line journalism, known as Boston.com:  “We were one of the last at this game but we learned from other sites.”
“I knew that when we started targeting specific slices of the population I really believed that it would be successful so the first thing that we did was launch three town sites,” Hanafin continued.  While newspapers are dropping in readership, journalists are still looking towards making their on-line counterparts appealing to readers and it looks like community is going to be a key player in all this, as well as a more engaging type of journalism.
Alphonse mentioned the changes that are being made amongst employees, “A lot of staff writers are being handed cameras and said to go out there and shoot some video.  We can do some video, a podcast, there are a lot of different options now.”
Just as the idea of looking up the facts from an encyclopedia seems outdated when put next to ease that Wikipedia offers so may the classic idea of a print news story when put next to the multimedia pieces that are taking over news websites.
This goal to succeed, not just from a journalistic standpoint but a financial standpoint as well does add a new dimension to the world of journalism.  Hanafin explained, “Now you have to prove the business model before anything gets launched.  There has to be market research done, what’s the population, the house hold income, is this site likely to attract people and is it the demographic that advertisers are interested in.”
This is leading to a double-consciousness amongst journalists creating a business mind as well as the impartial journalist mind.  Alphonse worries, “that line is getting blurred a bit.”

Against the Deadline:   http://vimeo.com/4728791

Lifetime Contracts:    http://vimeo.com/4726874

The FDIC: Now and Then

As the economic state of the country continues to creep into financial disarray, there is still one government persona that Americans are still happy to see – Sheila Bair.
August of last year, Forbes.com named Bair the second most powerful woman (next to the Chancellor of Germany) noting that she is leading an institution “that is suddenly an actor in the global drama”.  Bair is chairman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, what she calls “the last stop for capital-starved banks before going under”.
The FDIC are the people responsible for making sure that the money that was lost in the banks closing is not lost to its rightful owners.
Created by Congress in 1933, less than a year after Franklin D Roosevelt was elected to his first term as president and in the midst of what is now known as ‘the Great Depression’ the FDIC had a deposit insurance coverage of $2,500.  In less than a year it doubled.  By 1980, it reached $100,000 where it stayed until a bump up to $250,000 in 2008 which is only supposed to remain in place until 2010, when it will return to $100,000.
The corporation was created by the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933, whose main purpose was to separate bank types according to their business – commercial or investment banking.  The deposit insurance program which spawned from this was modeled after a program initially enacted in Massachusetts.
The mission of the FDIC is to insure deposits in banks and thrift institutions and, as Bair has noted, “public confidence” – an issue that was just as pressing eighty years ago as it is today.
Without confidence in the banking systems then people are more reluctant to hand their money over to them.  When this is the case, the banks can no longer use fractions of the deposits to invest in the economy and, in turn, keep it running smoothly and money generating.
Here the FDIC steps in so that when a bank like IndyMac makes a poor decision and loses everything, the investors, or depositors, don’t have to experience the same thing.  Although it may seem that the recession has sprung out of nowhere, the majority of economists trace the major problems back to 2007 when subprime mortgages were spread too thing amongst borrowers who wouldn’t be able to meet the higher payments.
On Friday, March 27, Bair gave a lecture to a room full of people in the School of Management at the University of Massachusetts.  While there, she recognized that people are still scared but confidence is necessary.  “These are tough time whether you are a student or a teacher,” she said, stressing the importance of maintaining a level of idealism.

Comedy Jam

The last time I spoke with David Goldman, he walked away telling me to “keep my ears peeled for the comedy jam”.

To be honest, I completely forgot about it.  But, as luck (or maybe fate – depending on what theory you subscribe to) would have it, I ran into Goldman today and it turns out that the Comedy Jam is this weekend.

This Friday and Saturday (April 3rd and 4th) the Comedy Jam will take place in Bartlett, room 65.  It will run from 7pm to 11pm both nights.  Also, it’s free.

“The theme of the weekend,” said Goldman, “is traumedy.”

I told him I have no idea what that means.

Goldman sighed, smiled, and raised his hands as he explained, “We feel that with the current state of the economy there is an air of trauma about us which we are looking to cure… with comedy”.

The Comedy Jam will feature the three on-campus comedy groups: IWA (Improve With Attitude), Sketch-22, and Mission: Improvable.  There will also be a number of visiting troops including Dirty Water and Aaron & Frank – a two-man sketch group from the UBT (the Upright Citizens Brigade Theater Company)

Goldman was excited to share that he will be co-hosting on Saturday night.  The on-campus comedy groups normally perform in rooms with seating for about 150, however this weekend the troops will be performing before 600 seats – and perhaps even people sitting in them – making this the biggest comedy event of the year for all the troop members.

The event falls on parents weekend which usually yields a strong turnout.

The Comedy Jam is being presented by the Student Valley Productions which offers show dates,contact info and bios on all the troop members.

And just like last time, Goldman walked away on a note of ambiguity: “There is going to be a big promotional event outside the Student Union center on Thursday afternoon.  I can’t disclose any information about what is going to be happening there… but it will be exciting.”

And that, is that.

No Butts About It : the price of cigarettes

It’s pretty common knowledge that smoking cigarettes leads to a premature death with a transitory cushion of cancer – maybe pretty wasn’t the best word choice.  And yet, according to the American Heart Association 23.5 percent of American men smoke and 18.1 percent of the women.  At a glance, the statistics may seem a bit high but for anyone that has hung around a college campus recently, the smoke clouds don’t lie.

Despite the high number of smokers, people have been fighting the commonality of cigarettes for a long time: smoking bans in public places, more and more anti-smoking commercials and advertisements have been popping up, as well as an increase in tobacco-related taxes.  Massachusetts just passed another tobacco tax that increased the over all price of tobacco products about a dollar, making the average price of a pack of main brand cigarettes (i.e. Camels or Marlboros) about $8.

The Boston Globe, in a recent article, cites a survey that points out that, “every 10 percent increase in cigarette prices yields a 4 percent decline in sales”.  The survey doesn’t mention the other important fact that the 96% of sales that remain experience a 10% increase.

The article does bring up an important aspect of taxing tobacco: “It is crucial that any increase in tax receipts be used for tobacco-related health services, said Siegel, who is not involved in the campaign. Otherwise, if states use the money to build roads or fix bridges, it puts them in the uncomfortable position of depending on increases in tobacco tax revenue driven by use.”

So that basically means that for all the smokers that are willing to ignore the financial hole that these taxes are burning into their pockets, the extra money their dishing out isn’t even going towards something fun like less potholes on the streets, or new water fountains – instead, they’re just getting an increase in anti-smoking campaigns which they are obviously keen on ignoring since they are willing to invest so much in either cancer or looking as cool as people like the philosopher Albert Camus or the singer Janis Joplin (both died before the cancer could get them- one, a car crash, one, on vomit).

Here are some tips for those who don’t want to quit smoking, but financially have no choice:

• Tell your friends to stop letting you bum cigarettes – even if you don’t, they are just going to get annoyed eventually, so you might as well just nip it in the butt.
• Try to get into a new routine – take a different route to school or work if the normal route is just going to bring back memories of lighting up in transit.
• Limit your coffee and alcohol intake – everyone knows that coffee and cigarettes is a match made in heaven… so get over it.
• Do something active – it’s all too easy to feel invincible, “cancer won’t get me and if it does, I’ll be too old to care”.  Don’t focus on the far off fate, instead, think about how crappy you feel after you ran ten yards to catch the bus and how gross it was wheezing the whole ride.  Running is a nifty skill to have, so use it.

Cheers.

Sketch Comedy at Umass

Tonight laughs echoed throughout Herter Hall as Umass’ sketch comedy group Sketch-22 performed their second show of the season. The show began at 8 pm and continued until 9:30 pm with fifteen sketches on the night’s bill.

I ran into David Goldman before the show, a Umass senior whose in his third and final year in Sketch 22. “It’s going to be a great show tonight. We have three new members debuting tonight as well as a number of video sketches including a ’24′ parody.”

I was happy to see that Goldman’s words came true – it was a great show, the three new members also performed well, bringing new elements to the cast, and the ’24′ parody starred everyone in the cast and had superb editing.

The sketches held a range of topics including a cash cab parody (Crash Cab), a convention for depressed robots (Killbot – a robot programed to kill everything he loves – lets out a long metal drone holding a dead cat, “his only crime was loving me too much”), and classroom scene where the Shakespeare teacher happens to be a flamboyant neo-nazi.

After the show I reconvened with Goldman who laughed when I brough it up. “Yeah, I wrote that one,” he laughed, “I’ll admit – I was a little worried about including that scene. It’s a little edgy but then again, I’m Jewish, so I figured ‘what the hell’. The audience appeared to enjoy it so I think I might have made the right decision.”

Sketch 22 still has one more showed scheduled this semester, their annual last day of classes show. The show will be in the same room, the auditorium in the Herter addition.

As I let Goldman go to mingle with the audience he left with one last bit of advice: “if you like to laugh, keep your ears peeled for the Comedy Jam in April.”

I will, and if you like to laugh, then so should you.

Sketch Comedy at Umass

Tonight laughs echoed throughout Herter Hall as Umass’ sketch comedy group Sketch-22 performed their second show of the season.  The show began at 8 pm and continued until 9:30 pm with fifteen sketches on the night’s bill.

I ran into David Goldman before the show, a Umass senior whose in his third and final year in Sketch 22.  “It’s going to be a great show tonight.  We have three new members debuting tonight as well as a number of video sketches including a ’24′ parody.”

I was happy to see that Goldman’s words came true – it was a great show, the three new members also performed well, bringing new elements to the cast, and the ’24′ parody starred everyone in the cast and had superb editing.

The sketches held a range of topics including a cash cab parody (Crash Cab), a convention for depressed robots (Killbot – a robot programed to kill everything he loves – lets out a long metal drone holding a dead cat, “his only crime was loving me too much”), and classroom scene where the Shakespeare teacher happens to be a flamboyant neo-nazi.

After the show I reconvened with Goldman who laughed when I brough it up.   “Yeah, I wrote that one,” he laughed, “I’ll admit – I was a little worried about including that scene.  It’s a little edgy but then again, I’m Jewish, so I figured ‘what the hell’.  The audience appeared to enjoy it so I think I might have made the right decision.”

Sketch 22 still has one more showed scheduled this semester, their annual last day of classes show.  The show will be in the same room, the auditorium in the Herter addition.

As I let Goldman go to mingle with the audience he left with one last bit of advice: “if you like to laugh, keep your ears peeled for the Comedy Jam in April.”

I will, and if you like to laugh, then so should you.

Multimedia review

Snuggie on the street: Watch your back.

by Allen Salkin

I found the article as a slideshow. The topic was how the Snuggie fared on outdoor excursions – on this romp, Manhattan in particular. This is a fashion article, and on top of that, a fashion article about a blanket with sleeves. Not that I frown upon this in anyway but I feel that it’s pretty fair to say that I would not usually take the time to read a fashion article, especially one regarding a blanket with sleeves. I would however look at a slideshow about it.

Next thing I know, I’m reading the article.

The slideshow has little blurbs on the side that go along with each picture. The reporter isn’t taking the piece to seriously; it’s a funny idea after all, about a funny product that has become a common reference in a short amount of time. So the timing is right. Each picture just focuses on the reporter doing common Manhattan activities while adorned with the Snuggie. The blurbs back them up: “On the subway, it did make holding the rail easier” rather than when trying to hold the rail in a normal blanket. The reporter also takes the time to point out that it isn’t often that you see someone who “wears a blanket on the subway”. Then again, maybe now we know why.

Ice skating: “Snuggie gets caught in ice-skate blades easily.”

Falling: “Not thick enough to cushion falls on rock-hard ice.”

Eating a slice of pizza and talking on your cell phone: “It’s possible.”

So like I said, even though I probably wouldn’t have gone out of the way to click on the link to read the article, I was intrigued enough to view the slideshow. Through the process I fell down the rabbit hole and next thing I know, I’m reading the article.

The article itself wasn’t that great. It had the same quirkiness about it that made the slideshow fun but it worked better in short snippets rather than a long piece. It eventually becomes a bit contrived and loses its appeal and by the end I realized my attention had been reduced to simply skimming the paragraphs but still, through the convergence of the slide show and the article, I ended up delving farther into fashion and Snuggies that I ever might have otherwise. I also ended up surfing through a few more pages than I normally would, exposing myself to more advertisements.